


To Render

by havisham



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Community: comment_fic, Disturbing Themes, M/M, Present Tense, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-29
Updated: 2012-09-29
Packaged: 2017-11-15 06:47:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/524344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/havisham/pseuds/havisham
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Let me in</i>, Charles begs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Render

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you, Elleth, for the look-through.

There is an imperial quality to Charles’ love.

It is a good sort of love, the kind that can build bridges and open minds, and Charles is a benevolent autocrat. And when he presses against Erik, his blue eyes wet and not a little sentimental, his mouth softly tenacious against Erik’s skin, and when he says, “I want to help you,” Erik does believe him. 

But. 

He’s constantly aware of it. The ever-present press of Charles’ mind against his. It is unobtrusive but there, always. A foreign fingerprint, in the dust of old memories. 

Charles asks, of course, before he takes excursion into Erik’s mind. He is always discreet, always eager to give comfort when he can. Charles is good, good, _good_ , and Erik is sitting in Charles’ study, wearing Charles’ father’s old smoking jacket (it is too big for Charles, his father was a man who had been built more like Erik), and he is drinking the best of Charles’ liquor in a cut-glass tumbler that was part of a display -- before Charles set them down and and with a shrug, and said, “Things are meant to be used.” 

He had opened up his grand and sprawling house for the same reasons, and now the floorboards above Erik creak as a group of excited teenagers troop upstairs. Charles and their students back from their day-trip to Manhattan. 

Both Raven and Charles wander into the study, laughing and whispering, fumbling with the keys, and when they catch sight of Erik who is -- well-- lurking is a good name for it. Raven laughs and it’s bubbly and golden, one of the few things she doesn’t need to mimic. 

She kisses Charles on the cheek and he wishes her good night. 

“You too,” she says, amused, and leaving behind her a faint trace of laughter. And Charles turns to him, shaking his head as if to say, _little sisters, what can you do?_ \-- except Erik has never had one, and he settles more deeply into his chair and glowers. 

Telepathy is not needed, exactly, to see the set of his thoughts tonight, and Charles rubs his temples and looks momentarily weary. 

“How was the great metropolis? Did you manage to impress our students with best of human culture?” Erik sips at the last of the whiskey, and watches Charles settle back into the chair opposite of him. Charles winces, as if remembering something unpleasant. 

“It was...” His eyes scan the room, leisurely,to the fire, to Erik, to Erik’s hands, before settling on Erik’s face again. “Challenging. It would have been better if you could have come along, of course. But I take it that your phone call came through?” 

It was not a question, and so Erik did not bother to answer. Shaw had moved his operations, again, but it’s only a matter of time before Erik should act. 

And Charles is speaking again, as a form of courtesy to make up for Erik’s silence, a funny story about one of the boys and disturbance at the park, and Erik interrupts him before he can get to the kicker. 

“Come here,” he says, a lazy command. 

Charles raises an eyebrow but complies, stooping a little to catch Erik’s upturned face. He knows his breath smells of whiskey, just like Charles smells of sweat, of being stuck in a car for too long. Erik fumbles with Charles’ tie -- the fixtures in the room rattle a little -- and as quick as anything, Charles is up and tugging at his hand. 

_Upstairs_ , he mouths, and Erik allows himself to be towed away. 

Charles gives, that _is_ the problem with him, one of the problems with him. He gives too much, and he expects. He expects something back -- not as much as he gives (even he’s aware that it is too much -- ) but _something_. 

Erik is used to harsher calculations and has taught himself to expect nothing. Or so he thinks. 

Charles, well-meaning, magnanimous (to a fault, and Erik is getting very good at finding Charles’ faults), makes all of this impossible. Impossible to remember what he had thought about Charles earlier, in abstract, with Charles there, with him. And his eyes aren’t so wet-looking now (full of unshed tears for those who have less than he) but -- they are blazing blue, leaving trails, burning, across Erik’s tortured skin. 

They are naked, and it’s quick work, too quick, really, to savor -- not that Erik wants to -- no, he does, but... 

_Let me in_ , Charles begs, trailing kisses down Erik’s stomach. 

“No,” he manages to say before his voice degenerates into wordless gasps. 

Later, when Erik is somewhat at peace and Charles turns to him, flushed and sticky, but hardly content, and he asks -- _Now?_

Erik nods and he is peeled back -- boneless, bodiless -- away -- cacophony modulates into music and and Charles laughs without uttering a single sound. And there shouldn’t be beauty there, in the recesses of Erik’s mind, but there is. Charles can always find it. 

And claim it.


End file.
